Who Wonders What Will Happen If Hakeem Jeffries Becomes Speaker? Let’s Check With Sir Keir Starmer

Jeremy Corbyn's New Political Party... A Very Good Idea

The Democrats need to win on something beyond just this

Nevada was one of the swing states that flipped to Trump last year, after having voted, narrowly, for Hillary in 2016 and Biden in 2020:

• 2016 (76.8% turnout)

Hillary- 539,260 (47.9%)

Trump- 512,058 (45.5%)

• 2020 (78.2% turnout)

Biden- 703,486 (50.1%)

Trump- 669,890 (47.7%)

• 2024 (72.8% turnout)

Trump- 751,205 (50.6%)

Kamala- 507,197 (47.5%)

If Trump was running today, he would probably lose, badly. Swing voters who participated in a focus group are concerned enough about inflation, Trump’s Big Ugly Bill and the Epstein sex scandal to overwhelmingly turn against Trump (7 of 12). These findings are similar to what polls and surveys are showing in other states and nationally. People are turning against Trump… but they’re not turning towards Democrats. And why should they. The Democratic establishment in Congress If Trump running today, he would probably lose, badly.  Swing voters who participated in a focus group are concerned enough about inflation, Trump’s Big Ugly Bill and the Epstein sex scandal to overwhelmingly turn against Trump (7 of 12). These findings are similar to what polls and surveys are showing in other states and nationally. People are turning against Trump… but they’re not turning towards Democrats. And why should they. The Democratic establishment in Congress spends more time reassuring Wall Street than fighting for working families. Instead of delivering on bold promises— like tackling corporate price gouging, universal health care, raising the minimum wage or ending the revolving door of corruption— they’ve offered stale talking points, milquetoast reforms and symbolic gestures that voters see through. While Trump disgusts voters, the Democratic leadership bores or alienates them. They’ve squandered their majorities, caved to lobbyists and treated progressives like a nuisance. Why would struggling Americans rally behind a party that too often acts like the slightly more polite wing of the donor class?

If they don’t want to listen to Bernie or to AOC about what they need to do, perhaps they should listen to British comedian Jonathan Pie talking about the Labour Party. Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Pete Aguilar, listen to this monologue about Labour’s one year anniversary in “power,” closely:

He ventured that the most surprising thing about this government is “how bad they are at politics, how bad they are at messaging, communication, governing… stupid, careless mistakes and political malpractice wherever you look, mistakes of their own making: u-turns and incompetence and  political ineptitude. It’s like going back in time to the heady days of 2024 and 2023 and 2022. 

“They voted in to change things. And yet there’s been no change, no difference whatsoever— Tory chaos rebadged with a red rosette. You have to get elected then you have to deliver. It took you 14 years rot get elected. You don’t have that long to deliver. You can’t fuck about for 7 years going ‘Should we either tax billionaires a tiny bit more or cut disability benefits leaving 250,000 people into poverty, 50,000 of them children? Hmmmm… what did the last guys do? Get Rushi on the phone.’ Cutting wonder fuel payments with a sledgehammer not a scalpel— bad political move… Cutting benefits for disabled people… This is not what people who voted Labour expect from a Labour government.

“So people aren’t going to vote for you next time. And they’re not going vote Tory next time; they’re gonna vote Reform and it’ll be all your fault. And it’s not just the electorate who are baffled by the government’s political ineptitude. As we’ve seen this week, Labour backbenchers— they’ve had enough. They’ve been wandering around Westminster all year like they’ve gotten on the wrong bus. ’Sorrybut where is this going? Where is this taking us?” Suddenly they’re asking themselves whether their loyalty lies with Keir Starmer or their constituents. Who are they here to serve? And it turns out quite a few Labour backbenchers want change as the rest of us do… Wake up, Starmer! Twenty percent of your time in office is over! A majority of 165 and you look powerless and clueless. It’s time to get a fucking grip, Your MPs, your voters, the country, want better. They want change!”

Pie’s volcanic, righteous fury at Starmer’s government might just as well be hurled across the Atlantic at the Democratic congressional leadership. Because if there's one thing that rivals Starmer’s dithering centrism, it's the Democratic Party’s infuriating habit of mistaking access for power, and process for progress. Schumer, Jeffries, Aguilar have mastered the art of looking busy while delivering nothing but excuses— endless fundraisers, endless warnings, endless “we hear you” tweets while the country burns and billionaires feast.

Just like in the UK, voters handed Democrats real power— majorities in both chambers and the White House in 2020— and what did we get? A child tax credit that expired without a fight. No minimum wage increase. No filibuster reform. No real climate action that matches the scale of the crisis. They let Manchin and Sinema drag out Biden’s (and Bernie’s) Build Back Better bill until it bled out in a hallway. The result: working families screwed, young people demoralized and the rich richer than ever. “Let’s find common ground,” they say, as if fascists are looking to compromise.

And now they’re stumbling toward another election with no vision, no urgency, no fire in the belly. They keep thinking, wrongly, that they can coast to victory on the fumes of Jeffrey Epstein and “we’re not Trump.” But people want something to vote for, not just something to vote against. They want a living wage, universal healthcare, reproductive freedom, housing that doesn’t devour half their paycheck, and an economy not rigged against them. Instead, they’re getting more blank checks for police, more Pentagon bloating, and more Wall Street-friendly half-measures dressed up as “historic,” and more U.S.-complicit, AIPAC-sponsored genocide in Gaza.

The real tragedy? The American people— like the British— are desperate for change. And if Democrats won’t deliver it, someone else will. Someone crueler, dumber, and far more dangerous. If Schumer, Jeffries, and the rest of the institutional guard don’t wake the hell up, they’ll find out just how fast a supermajority can turn into a supernova.

This week, Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana launched a new political party in the U.K., a growth of Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project, a populism that contrasts itself to the right-wing populism of the fascist-leaning Reform Party. “What we’re offering instead,”said Corbyn, “is to bring people together so we collectively face the issues of poverty, the issues about bad housing, the issues of underfunded education, so we face those issues together.”

By yesterday, the party already had over 300,000 sign ups. “To put that in perspective,” offered Council Estate Media, “Reform has around 229,000 members and the Tories have 131,000. The evidence could not be clearer: people are desperate for change. At Labour's peak under Corbyn, the party had a membership of nearly 600,000 which has plummeted to 309,000 under Starmer. Most of the people who left Labour in disgust have jumped into the arms of the new party. Expect that trend to continue until the new party is by far the biggest in the UK.”

I'm not sure if Starmer realises that constantly kicking his party's members in the bollocks was a suicidal move, but he soon will. Remember when Angela Rayner said she would suspend thousands and thousands of members until everyone fell in line? Well, Corbyn sends his thanks!

From now on, every move Labour makes to alienate its members and voter base will only help the new party grow. Labour could change tact and pretend to be socialist again, but no one will be falling for that shit. It's over. Labour is done. I should feel sad and yet I only feel relieved.

We could plausibly be in a position where Labour and the Tories do not form a government or opposition at the next election. This will prove forty-six years of Thatcherite policies have been a catastrophic failure. This leads me onto the next point which is that we must remind people Reform is a Thatcherite party. 

While Reform MPs occasionally talk like socialists, putting forward arguments such as nationalising water, the truth is Farage is a Thatcherite and Reform cannot be trusted. They are trying to pull the same trick as Starmer: fool the electorate so they gain power and then do business as usual.

If we can show the public that establishment politics is what they will get with Reform, the new party will become the only viable alternative. 

Polls show the new party is already somewhere between 10% and 20% of the vote and potentially level pegging with Labour. It's a matter of time until Labour collapses, given that Rachel Reeves is always looking at which group she can impoverish next. Labour is offering nothing to anyone.

Hilariously, the Labour right are panicking as they realise this is the end of the road. This is what happens when you stand for nothing other than yourself.

… A whole bunch of people got involved in politics in the Starmer era with little or no understanding of anything. People who based their politics on vibes and saw this as a popularity game. People who think it's still 1997 and being working class means listening to Oasis. People who thought they could fix the country by implementing the same policies, only sensibly. People who thought systemic issues could be solved by better presentation. People who screamed "get the Tories out" and baulked at the idea of meaningful change. People who wanted sensible middle-management while cosplaying as leftists for street cred. People whose lives do not change one iota no matter who wins. Their approach was a vacuum of ideas and morality and it failed as dramatically as we predicted. You can't just put on a nice suit, declare change is coming and do nothing to accomplish change.

Change is now finally on offer and the "get the Tories out" crowd are distraught. Imagine working so hard to get rid of Corbyn, only to find out you're back to square one.

… The establishment is not gonna give up without a good smear. Corbyn will be told he is wearing the "wrong tie" by people who get their donors to buy their wives designer clothes. Sultana will be told she is an "anti-white racist" by people who burn down buildings with immigrants inside. The party members will be called "terrorist supporters" by people who've participated in genocide. The thing is the smears aren't gonna work because we are going to collectively tell them to fuck off.

The thing about smears is when you shrug them off, they have no power. It's only when you panic and apologise and pander to your accusers that smears have power. This time around we will not be surrendering power, we will be claiming it.

"Anticipating Midterms" by Nancy Ohanian